The Balvenie Malt Master, David Stewart, is one of the longest-serving and most-respected Malt Masters in the land. To mark the 50 remarkable year anniversary of this dedication to his craft, we created a design that visualised 50 years by using 50 layers of wood.
This most recent collection consists of three remarkable marriages. Each is unique: a perfectly balanced percentage of rare 50-year-old single malt Scotch whiskies. Each annual release echoes this marriage with delicate bands of sycamore representing the ratio of each cask: data visualisation in highly crafted physical form.
For the production of the pack we turned to another master of his trade. Sam Chinnery runs his workshop on a farm in the northern Scottish town of Elgin, where he lives with his family. As a cabinet maker, wood is at the heart of his work – the perfect partner for a whisky, painstakingly crafted by the character of the wooden casks that had matured it.
Alongside the cask numbers, the ratios of the marriage are again echoed in the delicate detail of the label.
Each annual release was distinguished with different woods.
"To be able to interpret David Stewart's dedication to craftsmanship, and to work with remarkable craftspeople like Sam is one of the great privileges of the work that we do. "
Mark Paton, Creative Partner
The craft of making these whiskies is meticulous – there’s a scientific genius to them. So we wanted to bring an aspect of this measured approach into the design. This simple, yet intricate approach is carried through to the segmented brass disk at the bottom of the cylinder – a simple turn exposes the notes and flavours of each different casks.